


What Came Before

by Somekindofcontraption



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Endgame, F/M, Fade Tongue, Post-Endgame, Self-Reflection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somekindofcontraption/pseuds/Somekindofcontraption
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Before the quaking rush of the dragon’s wings, before the haunting voice of Corypheus echoing over a bloody battlefield, before her still beating heart became a wreckage in her chest, burned out, bleeding. Before the broken orb and Solas’ obvious heartbreak, written on his face like vallaslin, seeping out like an open wound.</p><p>How much of it was real?"</p><p>While the victory celebration rages on downstairs, Lavellan reflects on her relationship with Solas having discovered his true identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Came Before

When all was said and done, Lavellan had nothing but the moments that came before.

 

Before the quaking rush of the dragon’s wings, before the haunting voice of Corypheus echoing over a bloody battlefield, before her still beating heart became a wreckage in her chest, burned out, bleeding. Before the broken orb and Solas’ obvious heartbreak, written on his face like vallaslin, seeping out like an open wound.

 

How much of it was real?

 

In between healing breaches, the torn veil, requisitions, there had been long fingers laced in hers. Slow, passionate sex in tents in the Hinterlands, on the Storm Coast, rains beating down on canvas … journeys into the fade. There had been warm nights entwined in ruins— the Emerald Graves, the Exalted plains. A million stolen looks, warm kisses, stories passed between them in the dark, in the afternoon sun, in the morning rain. The Fallow Mire, wading their way through water thick with dead, horrors unimaginable, worry for each other’s safety with each passing step. Near misses in Emprise Du Lion, where the frostbite almost took her bare elvhen feet— The Western Approach, where his skin burned under the scorching sun.

 

Before the voices of the well whispered their secrets in her ear; secrets she heard without listening, a name whispered to her in the dark that she could not begin to consider. When they shared a dance on the balcony at the winter palace, having just won the day yet again in a miraculous, unexpected victory. His hand on her waist, when she forgot for a moment that she was an outsider, separate in her own life, herald to a goddess she did not believe in.

 

Before she saw his fear written on a tombstone; that first kiss, second, third, like secrets shared in the fade.

 

His thigh wedged between her legs, the graceful hand on the dip of her back as he wrenched those kisses from her, so unlike the patient way he coaxed magic from beyond or questions from her curious mind— an abrupt departure from the careful demeanor so artfully maintained, full of the fierce pride from which he took his name. The quiet, “we shouldn’t,” before she awoke, gasping, in her own bed.

 

Before she’d come to know that _shouldn’t_ meant can’t, _won’t_.  

 

Before the final battle, he took her to a quiet pool. He kissed her breathless under the light of countless stars, the veil thin, dancing electric across her exposed skin. The earth dewy and alive beneath her feet. He told her the error of her ways, pride feeding off pride, taking from the Dalish all they had left and leaving them embarrassed, leaving her embarrassed.

 

He took her vallaslin, called her beautiful, and then left her crying and barefaced, no more than a child and twice as naive as to think he had done any of it for anyone but himself.

 

Memories of when he was just Solas; hahren, lethallin, _vhenan_. Before all that remained was Fen’harel, who knew only how to use and lay waste. Whose tricks had torn the gods from the People, whose lies had left her burnt out, razed her to the ground. Would her victory always feel so hollow as it did now? Below her feet, the Inquisition gathered to revel in her victory—

 

 

Alone on the balcony, the Inquisitor put her bare face in her hands and wept.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my indispensable editor revolutionjack!


End file.
